What sucks, who sucks and you suck

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2004-02-18

Years of corporate servility and domestic senility have left BB unable to summon the once-legendary rage and venom, not to mention literacy, that sustained whole articles of tilting at windmills. Reduced to soundbites and “boom-boom” punchlines, we can only sigh apathetically about the following:

The only way we can conceive that The Darkness manage to sell albums is because all the budget CD shops have sold out of cheap copies of Bon Jovi’s Slippery When Wet. Comparing them to Spinal Tap is unfair, because Break Like The Wind is actually a good album.

Norah Jones, Katie Melua, Dido, Jamie Cullum and their ilk are the kind of artists who wouldn’t even create a ripple if you put them in a weighted sack and threw them in a canal.

Speaking of which, Radio 2, who are mainly responsible for the good fortunes of the aforementioned unwanted litter (assisted by the fact that the sum total of all public taste is zero), is so bland it should be sponsored by Otis. BB has a fondness for some 70s music, but the stuff they continually exhume, like a stalker still fixated even after a thirty year sentence for murdering the object of his affections, must have seemed cheesy and naff even then - and that would have been measuring against the high background radiation of cheesy naffness that is synonymous with that decade. Even Supertramp themselves must be ready to complain about over-exposure. Worse, when they play something good that you actually enjoy, it kind of devalues it immediately; like your mother saying, “This is a nice tune, isn’t it dear? Who did you say it was? Placebo?”

Justin Timberlake: We know he dated Britney and he’s boffing Cameron and he can’t shave and all that, but has anyone actually listened to his music? Does it exist? We suspect that when you take one of his CD cases off the rack and up to the counter, the assistants merely pretend to search for the disc and then quietly slip the empty case straight in a bag while you’re signing the card slip. When you get home, you pretty much forget about it - much like Justin - and just slide it in with your other albums. Every so often, you remember you own it so you figure you must like Justin Timberlake, along with everyone else. And, rather like those “how many errors does this sentence contain?” puzzles, your mind simply blanks out the fact that you’ve never, ever heard him sing. On the other hand, Katie Melua’s CD simply evaporates as soon as you open the case. That’s a blessing. Maybe she should be vacuum-sealed.

Daniel Bedingfield - admit it, you made him up. He’s a mass hallucination based on an anonymous car mechanic.

Somehow (probably all that Radio 2), we’ve managed never to hear Beyonce, Outkast, Andre 3000, The White Stripes, The Strokes, The Hives, The Libertines, Basement Jaxx, Busted or 50 Cent. But we have read all about them. On balance, we figure we must be doing something right (apart from the Radio 2 - and the reading).